July 22, 2025 • 38 mins
In this episode, screenwriter and filmmaker S.S. Wilson shares the behind-the-scenes journey of creating the cult classic Tremors, revealing how creative limitations, meticulous story structure, and a deep respect for character and sound design brought the film to life. From his writing process with partner Brent Maddock to the evolution of the Tremors franchise and his advice for aspiring filmmakers, Wilson offers a masterclass in crafting compelling, low-budget cinema with heart and precision.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
You are listening to the ifh podcast Network. For more
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Speaker 2 (00:12):
Welcome to the Indie Film Muscle Podcast, Episode number eight twelve,
Cinema Should Make You Forget. You're sitting in a theater,
Roman Polanski.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Broadcasting from the back alley in Hollywood. It's the Indie
Film Hustle Podcast, where we show you how to survive
and thrive as an indie filmmaker in the jungles of
the film biz.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
And here's your host, Alex Ferrari.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Welcome, Welcome to another episode of the Indie Film Huscle Podcast.
I am your humble host Alex Ferrari. Today's show is
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That's film bizbook dot com. Enjoy today's episode with guest host.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
Dave Bullis my guest on today's episode. Has one of
the most successful horror franchises of all time. Whether you've
seen the first Tremors or whether you've seen any of
the other Tremors, or even the TV series or even
the new TV series that's coming out. He doesn't have
anything to do with the new TV series coming out,
but still it's based off of his of his concepts.
(02:14):
You know, there's a lot to peakle lean from this
episode because when they make Tremors one, you know they
had to watch their budget because so what do they do, Well,
they put their monster offscreen and underground. Then at the
right moment of the reveal, you know, it's revealed in
stages and stuff like that. It kind of reminds me
of Reservoir Docs. I was watching that again. Reservoir Docs.
You never see the bank robbery, and I think the
(02:35):
main reason for that is it's not only a really
nice creative choice, but also because it saves money. You know,
when when you're making these first movies, you know, the
creative choices have to rule the day. So again, this
is what this was all about, you know, is making
a monster movie where they can control the rights and
you know, keep everything on the budget. So how do
(02:56):
you do that? Well, we're gonna find out today with
guests SS Wilson. Hey, Steve, thanks off for coming on
the show.
Speaker 4 (03:04):
Sir, You're welcome. You're welcome.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
So, you know, Steve, just to get started, I wanted
to ask what got you into the film industry. Was
you know, did you like films as you know, growing
up or is it just sort of one of those
things where one day you found yourself, you know, sort
of writing screenplays or on set somewhere well as a
tense to happen.
Speaker 4 (03:23):
Right. My story is a little different. I did love films.
I was a huge film buff as a kid, and
my dad supported that. And early on, when I was
I don't know, ten or eleven, he bought a eight
millimeter camera and I was one of those kids who
made movies in the backyard and tried to do special
effects with gunpowder and gasoline, which he also supported. Interestingly,
(03:45):
you know. And then my dad, then when I went
off to college, actually changed my life. I went off
to college and I don't know what I should do.
I guess I'll be a psychologist like my dad. That's
what he was. And he came up after I'd been
there a week or so he said, you know, what
are your courses? And I said, oh, is what I
(04:05):
signed up for. And he said, well, this makes no sense.
Even making movies in the backyard for ten years, that's
going up. And he went to my advisors and he said,
do you have anything like film or movies of television?
And he changed my whole course schedule. This is absolutely true.
And I had never thought about actually trying to do
it for a living, even though I'd been making movies
for years and years and doing stop motion animation. And
(04:26):
then I you know, I never looked back. I went, oh, well, yeah,
because then, you know, then there were people in the
in the departments. We didn't have much of a film
program at Penn State all those years ago, like tell
one television course and like two film courses, and you
had to borrow cameras from the local PBS station whatnot.
But uh, yeah, but that's what happened. And then I
(04:48):
h then I got drafted that I went to USC
Film Graduate School, and uh and there met a lot
of the people that I still work with. H And
even though it took almost ten years from graduating USC
to actually break in and make short circuit, we were
working in the film business making short films and little
(05:11):
short animated things and films for schools and libraries, TV
commercials and whatnot.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
You know, it's funny, Steve, that your your dad was
able to change your whole curriculum because you know, I
actually used to work at a college and grades and
all that stuff were so secretive. They actually fired a
professor one time because he told a student's father what
he got in the class as a final grade before
the kid with the kid did, and they actually just
fired the professor on the spot because of it. Wow, yeah,
(05:42):
it's just but no, that just it's funny though. You know,
it's funny how college has changed so much. But you know,
you went to Penn State, and you know I've actually,
you know, been up there. I actually attended a Penn
State football game. I didn't go there for college, but
you know I've been there once.
Speaker 4 (05:57):
Hitney Alliance.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
Small world, right, because you're out in LA now right,
I'm actually I live in Arizona. Oh okay, you know
I actually have a few friends out there. To go
to LA went as needed, I said, So, you know,
just to ask this, Penn stated ever asked you to
come back to talk about screenwriting or directing or anything.
Speaker 4 (06:19):
I've been bad. It's funny, ironic timing. You know, they
occasionally send me alumni stuff. I've never let them even
know what I do. I should do that, but no
they haven't. They haven't tracked me. Now, they have no idea.
You know who I am ring. I was kind of
an invisible student, geeky guy, and I just went through
and left.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
Well, I thought me they'd have some kind of alumni,
you know, sort of headhunter trying to kept tracking all
this stuff.
Speaker 4 (06:49):
You know, but I have I've never responded to any
of it, so I really actually have it on my
desk as we speak. I said, oh, I should let
them know. They probably would like to know.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
Well, then you know, you could just an this podcast instead, say,
got to go back. Just listen to this podcast on
talking to Dave. So you know you brought up Short Circuit,
by the way, I watched that movie religiously as a kid,
by the way, So I want to ask you know
about your whole writing style. I'm actually always fascinated by
people's writing styles and their approach to their own art.
(07:20):
So I wanted to ask you, Steve, how do you
approach writing? You know? Do you know, do you subscribe
to any sort of methods? Do you do very long
treatments first, or do you just sort of jump right
into writing.
Speaker 4 (07:31):
Brent and I, who have written practically everything together at
least certainly everything has been made, and we've been working
since the days at USC, both in the short films,
and then we wrote Short Circuit, which was our break
We have a very Our approach is outline, outline, outline.
(07:52):
We don't normally write a treatment for tremors. We did
only because we were trying to sell it and we
couldn't sell it as a pitch for because well we
couldn't and that didn't have the treatment didn't sell either,
by the way. But let me go back. So we
outline in great detail. We are not comfortable until we
know where the story is going, and we're very story oriented.
(08:16):
Some people can start, you know, sort of with a character.
Don't just say, oh, there's this character and he's a
drug addict and he's got these problems and I'm just
gonna think about what he does because he's a drug addict.
We can't do that. We've got to know where we're going.
So and we can't really get excited about something until
we know where we're going. Even if it's a rewrite,
which you know, you get offered quite a bit in Hollywood.
(08:37):
It's pretty much all Hollywood doesn't anymore, even if it's
a rewrite, we will sit down before we even say
yes to a job. We'll say, okay, we got to
go through this movie, figure out what we would change
or maybe they're telling us what they want change. We
got to be sure that we can make that work,
and we got to know where it's going because your
ending is is so important in a movie in our opinion.
(08:59):
In fact, somebody well known, maybe one of the Zucker brothers,
said you're ending as fifty percent of the movie. Somebody
said that, and we kind of believe that. So we
got to know where we're going, what the surprises are,
where the twists and turns are so long answer to
that question is we outline like crazy. In fact, we
used to drive studios crazy. And back in the day,
(09:20):
early on when we were getting started, you used to
get twelve weeks was a normal time to write a script,
and we would outline for eight and they'd be calling
us him so you're writing, are you writing well now?
Or so outlining They're like, are you out of your mind?
But then we would write it and you know, four
weeks because it was done.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
So you know, you mentioned tremors when you finally started outlining.
You know, did was there ever a sort of an
impetsus for that movie where you said, you know what,
this is where we want to take it? So you know,
you know what I mean? So we already know, you
know what the monster's going to be, and we sort
of know where the location is going to be. It's
going to be a perfection. Was that a part of
it or did that sort of come in during the
(10:03):
outlining phase.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
and now back to the show.
Speaker 4 (10:15):
Well, there again, we outlined it in great detail, worked
on it with Ron Underwood. Because the goal with Tremors
was to become producers. We were frustrated that everything we
had written up till then we discovered naive that we
writers that we were, that writers aren't really welcome on
this slid. Once you're done with this script, they don't
(10:35):
want to hear from you again. And we would go
to movies and that we had written and go, boy,
that's that's not what I would have done. And our
agent told us, well, look, you guys want to produce,
then you want control, and to get that, you're going
to have to control the material from the get go.
You can't be rewriting the studio's material. Blah blah blah.
So she said, what do you have in your portfolio
(10:57):
and your piles of notes? And we came up with
we came out of our piles of notes with we
got this underground monster idea and she said, that's kind
of cool. I've never heard of that before. And uh so,
first we sat down with Ronto, We outlined the whole story,
figured out who the characters were, where it was going
to go, and then we pitched it all over town.
(11:18):
Couldn't sell it, and then she said, well, let's uh
maybe should write a treatment, very detailed, like twenty five
page treatment. Did not sell send it to everybody, so
she well, I guess you're going to have to write
it on spec. So in between you know, the regular
Hollywood movies we were writing, we were writing Tremors on
spec and uh then took that all over town and
(11:41):
there was it was a huge Our agent was a
huge part of getting this done. She was central. We
call her the Mother of Tremors. This is Nancy Roberts
later our partner in Stampede Entertainment. Uh uh. She handpicked
you know who this script was going to. She did
what an agent really is to do. She handpicked who
the scripts and she knew the studio people. She told
(12:03):
us in advance what they were going to say. You know,
there were there were situations where because of her relationships,
there were certain times if she had a spec script,
she couldn't not show it to certain people because then
they would be mad that they were shut out of
the process. So she said, okay, this is going to
be weird. I have to send this to Disney. They
are going to stay we we hate this because it's
(12:26):
got so much dust in it. They had dusts and
we're like what, Sure enough, that's exactly what came back.
And all of this was, of course off the record,
you know, under the wire. But she got off the phone.
I think I was there at some point. No, No,
she was on the phone to somebody Disney, and they
were passing a very polite way, Well it's not right
(12:46):
for us at this time, and she said, come on,
Heiser doesn't like dust on the other end. But that's
all here, really true. And then she handpicked Jim Jacks, wonderful,
wonderful executive, cloud sick, old school executive who who at Universal,
who loved movies, loved all kinds of movies, knew exactly
(13:10):
what Tremors was. He saw exactly it's B movie, monster
movie roots and she knew that Jim would get it
and he would fight for it at Universal, which is
exactly what happened. And then she enlisted Gail and herd.
She was going to wrought Galeen hurd In because Gail
Anne looked at our buddy Ron's short movies, which is
all he had at the time. He had not done
(13:31):
a feature when we did Tremors, and the studio was like, wow,
we're gonna hand off this movie to a guy who's
only directed films for schools and libraries. And Gail looked
at the movies. Fun, the guy's a filmmaker. Don't worry
about it. And then she shepherded us, especially at the beginning,
you know, made sure we weren't going off the rails
some way to get her in trouble. As she was
(13:51):
executive producer. She saw the dailies and said, good, is
it gonna work?
Speaker 3 (13:57):
Yeah, you know, I really like Tremors. I'm gonna say why, Steve,
because you know, first, it's it just seems everything happens naturally,
you know what I mean. It's you know, and again
when you said you were you started with characters that
you know when you were working with the idea, it's
because you know, all those characters seem like they're real
people who live in that world and they all see
(14:17):
you know, and when they you know, when some of
them finally die, for anyone listening, I'm not who hasn't
seen it yet, I'm not gonna spoil it, but for anyone,
when they finally die, you know, you actually say, oh
my gosh, you know, there isn't a ton of guys
you know that are just getting mall. These are all
the characters right here. So when they finally die, when
not when some of them die, they go, oh my gosh,
you know, that actually is impactful in the story. It's
(14:39):
those escalating circumstances, you know what I mean. And even
with oh, well, you know, you're very welcome and uh,
you know, and because when when when you see the
worm for the first time, you think that's the monster
and then it becomes bigger, and you're always escalating that
further and further and further, and it's always, you know,
they they find a solution, the problem escalates, they find
(14:59):
a solution, problem escalates. I mean that that's just it's phenomenal.
And I don't know if you know who Red Letter
Media is, but they actually are a popular online review group,
and they actually gave it a you know, they actually
have this one segment where they talk about movies they like,
and they actually review Tremors and they said it's one
of their favorite movies.
Speaker 4 (15:17):
So it's always not to hear all of the things you're saying.
We worked very hard on. They were all very important
to us. We my partner is not a B movie
monster fan. I saw them all up until the mid
seventies or so. I saw everything, and I knew all
the cliches we were playing with. My partner is just
(15:38):
all about character. And again and both of us it
was very important that yes, the characters matter, that they
seemed that the plot, things that happened seemed to come
naturally out of the situation. And and even even the
monsters are consistent in what they do. You know, they
don't change the rules, they don't suddenly become indutructor or
(16:00):
anything like that.
Speaker 3 (16:02):
And one other compliment I want to give you too,
is the way that you constructed this with sound, because
you know what I mean, Like in the beginning, when
Earl and I forget Kevin Bacon's character, Uh yeah, foul yeah, uh.
Earl and Valen they're looking for you know, uh, the
the the doctor. They're you know, they're not yelling his name,
(16:23):
they're just sort of walking around and you could really
you know, they're hearing the planks walk, you hear the
bucket kick, and you're you know, and then you know,
valsas we know, where's that music coming from?
Speaker 4 (16:31):
You know what I mean?
Speaker 3 (16:32):
And you know, and and it just it always escuts
with that sound. And then when when you have Chang's
drug Store, you have that that that refrigerator that always
makes that noise, and then that causes you know, further conflict.
I mean, that's really really good writing and using that
audio for filmmaking.
Speaker 4 (16:47):
Oh yes, was well, we knew sound was gonna be critical.
We were a low budget movie and we and that's
why we that's part of the reason we picked Underground
Monster as one of the ideas that we decided to develop.
We thought, oh, well, are underground most of the time,
we'll never see them. Heaven knows. We had endless problems
even even though we in theory weren't seeing them. But
we knew that sound was gonna be critical. We had
(17:10):
great sound people, you know, and it was you know,
years ago people have asked me, you know, what, what
is the base sound of a grab BOYD That sadly
I don't know, and I you know, I've lost track
of the people who invented that sound.
Speaker 3 (17:24):
Yeah, you know I because for everyone that's seen the movie,
you know, that's that sound that they make, you know,
and it's you know, it just all ties them very
well together. And everyone I'm gonna link to Tremors in
the show notes to file off Amazon or Best Buy,
because it's right, it's totally recommended watching. I remember seeing
Tremors years ago, Steve, and it just blew me away.
But see, and I didn't know what I was watching
because you know, now, you know, I've I've studied filmmakers.
(17:47):
I've tell you this. When I go back, now I can,
I can sort of go through with a surgeon scalpel,
and I can pick out all this stuff. Oh, this
is why I found this so fascinating, you know what
I mean? And this is why I found it so entertaining.
So and then I and then I get to talk
to the guy who wrote it and uh, you know,
said made it so uh so now you can tell
me how wrong I am. No, I'm just kidding but no, no,
(18:09):
it's just you know, it's it's just it's a phenomenal film.
And that's why I'm so glad you know that that
the you know, I got to see U the franchise,
you know, they mean like Tremor's two, Tremors three. Uh,
you know, I know you guys you did four as well,
and you also did the TV series, and it was
always great to see you know, this sort of franchise expand.
And you know, you know, I always talk to you know,
(18:29):
my friends and always say, you know, some franchises, you know,
they they sort of go this way, some go that way.
H you know, I mean Friday thirteenth Night right now street.
But Tremor's always sort of kept it in perfection one
way or another because there was always you know what
I mean, there was always a sort of reason why
uh that you know, uh, you know, like like Tremor's
(18:51):
three when it's called back to Perfection, right, and that's
where Melvin's creating that whole town, right, and that leads
into the whole TV series. But it's just stuff like that,
you know what I mean, that's it's all organically well.
Speaker 4 (19:01):
We yeah, it was very important to us to make
the world consistent, and it wasn't easy. You know, we
never expected even to do Tremors Too. That came along
years later only because of the success of the HS.
You know, Tremors one was not a huge hit. I mean,
you know, Kevin Bigan reviewed viewed it as a flop
and he absolutely disowned it for many, many years. And uh,
(19:24):
it wasn't a flop per se, but it but it
did not do nearly what the studio hoped it would do,
and they were disappointed. And so we were floored. And
we got this call from video department who said, hey,
what about Tremors too? He said, what about it? They said,
we want it? What So we all had to sit
down because we were busy doing all kinds of other
stuff at that point in our careers, and said, God,
(19:46):
can we come up with the tremors too? And then
you know, then we said, well, all right, the big
cliche is there's a queen grab boyd And we all went, Okay,
no way we're doing a queen grab We're not going
to do it. And what do we do instead of that?
Speaker 2 (20:00):
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
And now back to the show.
Speaker 4 (20:09):
Then finally, I I'm gonna say it was me. I
think it was me. I was driving along in the
desert as I often am, and I said, I wonder
if they just turned into something small, how weird would
that be? And then we ran with that idea.
Speaker 3 (20:23):
Yeah, and I remember seeing that too, because that's when
they were actually walking on land. I forget the name
that that in the movie, that that the characters give
them Shookers, but the Shriekers, that's right.
Speaker 4 (20:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
And then because it's the third that they're called ass Blasters.
Speaker 4 (20:37):
Right, Well, that's their third incarnation that gave us that
told us where to go with the third one. We thought, okay,
well they change into a third form. And at the time,
again it was really important just to keep the characters consistent,
the rules consistent, other than but still come up with surprises.
You still can't you can't just do the same thing
over and over. So that's how we came up with
(20:58):
the ass Blasters. Uh and I. In fact, the effects
guys Tom Woodrofin Alla Gillis of Amalgamated Dynamics were the
ones who came up with ass Blasters because they were
just as invested in we were in protecting their monsters
and making them consistent, and they have a wonderful design approach.
It's a very real world based. They were volumes and
(21:18):
volumes of books about animals and creatures and skin textures,
and they literally came in one day. I say, hey,
or you, are you aware of the Bombardier beetle And
we're like, no, we're not. They said, that's a beetle
that mixes chemicals in its butt and makes us sound
like a firecracker. We're like, that's a real thing, absolutely,
and we think that's what ass blasters should do. And
(21:38):
we're like, we are totally on board with that. There
was something else I was gonna say, oh oh yes,
and then we got thrown a curb by Universal because
they said, okay, Tremer's through. It will definitely be the
last one. There will definitely not be anymore. We understand
our market perfectly and uh, and we know exactly how
the DVD world works and this is it. So we said, okay,
(21:59):
we'll wrap it up. That'll be that's cool. We will
say that this is the last form that creatures take.
Boom the end, Goodbye perfection, and almost immediately was well
we we did really much better than we thought. We
must have Tremors for.
Speaker 3 (22:15):
Yeah, because I you know, I actually saw Tremors for
and I actually was kind of shocked because I thought,
you know, because I was like, oh wow, I didn't
know they made another one. And you know what, this
is funny Steve here, you know, as you can kind
of tell him the movie buff, I didn't even know
you did a TV series. I actually didn't know you
did a TV series until last year.
Speaker 4 (22:34):
Well it's easy to do. I mean, there's so much
material now. There's a lot of stuff that I don't know.
I mean, the stuff that's being you know, I'm probably
not even up on half of Netflix's shows and all
this stuff. But anyway, I don't blame you.
Speaker 3 (22:47):
Well you I mean, because you know, I'm such a
movie head and I'm always like, you know, looking for
different stuff. And I said they did a Tremor's TV
series before I said, wow, I didn't notice that. So
I actually I actually bought it offline and I actually
went through and I was like, oh, okay, so it
sets up it's you know, it's it's three into the
TV series and then four is a prequel.
Speaker 4 (23:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
Uh, you know, I had to ask, you know, when
you make these Tremor movies, Michael Gross seems like the
coolest guy in the world. Is he Is he the
coolest guy in the world, because I mean he just
seems like he would just be an awesome guy to
hang out with.
Speaker 4 (23:20):
Yes, he's just a wonderful, funny, intellectual, not full of
himself actor. He's very He's great on the set, you know,
at understanding you know who has the scene. You know,
he's not trying to steal other people's lines or anything.
He's he's an actor's actor and and he's so he's
(23:41):
become you know, he became Burt. He took over Burt,
you know from us and Uh. And he would always
on Tremor's two and three and four, even though he
wasn't playing Burt, Uh, he would he would always come
to this set with little pencil delicately penciled lines in
the script, and then he went to sit down with
(24:01):
me and we sit down with us. Before we went
he said, Okay, I got this idea for a change
here and change here, and then we could go back
and forth. And said, well, if you say that, then
we won't know this. So oh yeah, yeah, you're right,
never mind. But a lot of times, you know, especially
with a bird character, he's he defends the character and
and he loves it. I thought at some point I
thought he was going to get tired of it. But
(24:23):
I always have to tell this quick story. You know,
he was a huge television star when he did Treumors one.
He had just finished years and years on Family Ties
playing a guy who could not be more different from Bert,
and they asked us to read him because he was
a big television star and they thought like that would
help the movie. And we went read the Father on
(24:46):
Family Ties and we go, well, okay, we'll do it
because they want us to do it. Well, he blew
us the way you know, he came in because he's
an actor, and he completely just Ron tells us Worth
that he was actually jumping up on his desk at
one point, being showing how far fraid he was of
the monster underground. Anyway, Then some years later, Michael told
(25:08):
me the story of walking down street in New York
and getting that look that fans get when they start
to recognize you, and the guy was walking toward him
and he sees the look he knows the fans going
to say it, and then the fan says, you're that
crazy gun guy and Michael said, yes, I finally escaped
Family Ties.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
I thought you were going to say, oh yeah, I
was the Downe Family Ties, a crazy gun guy. Yeah.
You know. It's funny because I introduced a friend of
mine to Tremors and he actually goes, wait a minute,
that's the dad from Family Ties. And I said, yes,
he's with the Heaton family and I'm sar Keaton and
Heaton and I said yeah, you know, and he goes, wow.
He goes, this is a different role for him, and
(25:52):
I said yeah, and I said, he fits it like
a glove. Because one of my favorite shots of the
whole movie is where Reba McIntyre and my goal Gross
in their underground bunker and the wall starts to shake
and they see the grab Boy come through and they
they start to fire at his rifles, those Bold action rifles,
and they're out of AMMO very quickly, and the camera
(26:15):
just pans over to the wall of guns and they
literally just are pulling guns off the wall. And I mean,
it's it's so if again organic characters, and that fits
so well because I would actually be disappointed Steve if
they did not have a wall of guns.
Speaker 4 (26:29):
Yes, he knew that was a key moment in the movie,
and it was great at the premieres, and that the
test screenings, you know, the audience would they would laugh
through the next all the way through the next scene.
Speaker 3 (26:43):
Yeah, and you know it was you know, a phenomenal.
Tremors is definitely one of my favorite movies. And I think,
you know, when I when I go back to you know,
writing and writing my own stuff, you know, I always
like to dissect movies and I've I've watched, you know,
and I I like to dissect movies that I've really liked.
And uh, you know, and now because this podcast to
talk to people who've who've written great stuff that I like.
(27:03):
So you know, it's just it's you know, it's just
great being able to talk to you, Steve, and you know,
finding out these little intriticities. I think I just butchered
that word, by the way, but uh, but you know,
and I want to ask, you know, Steve, you know,
you have such a great career. You know, you did
short circuit batteries not included short circuit two tremors, as
we all just talked about. I did ghost dat? You know,
(27:24):
is there any sort of writing advice you could give
to anyone listening who's writing the screenplay right now.
Speaker 4 (27:30):
Well, if you like our style, and that's step number one,
if you like the movies we've done, then do what
you're doing. First of all, analyze the stuff you like.
That's a lot of you know, pros. It will call
ourselves that would say that, because you won't be copying
the stuff that you like, you'll be learning from it.
You know, you you obviously understand setups and payoffs. For example,
(27:51):
it's a big thing for me and Britt bedding something
up early in the movie having it payoff later in
a surprising way. Those hard to do. It's hard to
do those correctly and without cheating, and a lot of
times to see movies cheat. Uh.
Speaker 3 (28:07):
I feel a little at odds.
Speaker 4 (28:09):
With kind of the current movie making steam giving anybody advice,
because film after film that has no plot and makes
no sense is wildly successful. And I've begun to wonder,
you know, I rail at this and I go, oh
my day, and blah blah blah, And yet you know
(28:30):
this is for years now, I've been seeing this. I've
started to think, well, the audience has really changed. I
think the younger audience maybe does not care as much
about what I think is important in storytelling, and they
truly do enjoy these movies. You know, part of me says, well,
they don't really enjoy them. It's just that's only that's
(28:50):
the only thing they you know, that's the only thing
on this weekend, so they go. I'm less than less
sure of that. But anyway, I would say, analyze the
stuff you like, whatever it is. You know, if it's
ordinary people, analyze that uh uh uh uh and uh
and write a lot. By the way, you'll hear this
too from other people. Don't get hung up on your
(29:12):
one script. But I did this. You know, early on
we would write a script and go over and over
and over and over, and then we've looked at one
of those earlier scripts. This is like four or five
scripts before a short circuit. You know, go, well, it
wasn't very good, and none of the versions that we
did it just wasn't very good. You got to you
got to move on, write something, get it done, say
(29:33):
goodbye to it, write something else. If you're if you're
a writer, you have plenty of ideas and the worst
worst cases, you find out, well, maybe I don't like it.
You know, you do four or five scripts and you go,
I don't like this, that's fine too, But write a lot.
Don't get hung up on one thing and you know,
(29:53):
and beat it to death, you know, push yourself to
to a degree, look out side your comfort zone.
Speaker 2 (30:03):
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
and now back to the show.
Speaker 4 (30:12):
Although I do think that, you know, if you like
emotional Uh, what's the Julianne Moore pictures she just did
where she was a lady with Alzheimer's. I can't think
of I can't remember the name of it. That's a
very emotional picture that I would never try to write, right,
but maybe you know, other people would, they would take
That's exactly the kind of movie I want to do.
(30:33):
Study those and write a lot. I already said what
I'm gonna say.
Speaker 3 (30:41):
You know, you know, that's great advice, you know, Steve,
you know, just going through and analyzing the movies that
you like and why you like those and like For instance,
I had Victor Miller on here, and Victor Miller wrote
Friday the Thirteenth Part one, by the way, which also
start Kevin Bacon by the way, Wow, yes, yes, small
world right, So you know, and we were talking about,
(31:02):
you know, how do you you know, how do you
break it down? And Victor said, listen, he goes, I've
been doing this for thirty years now, whatever, he said,
I'm still always looking for different ways of writing and
telling a story. He goes, so and he said to
me that, you know, he's always looking for a different method,
something to sort of crack the story or another way
(31:22):
to write. And you know, it's just it's just very
reassuring and unassuring at the same time to hear veterans
like you and him, you know, just talk about screenwriting
and always say, you know, they even with hits because
tremor you mean, because again you have you've had tremors,
You've had you know, short circuit, and you know, even
and he's you know, had Friday Thirteenth Part one, he's
(31:42):
had a few Emmy Award winning pieces, and it's still
it's again, it's reassuring, and it's it's a little worrisome
to hear that, you know, there's always they still don't
have it all figured out.
Speaker 4 (31:52):
Oh you know what I mean. Oh, even if these
hits every script. Yes, every script has its own life
that it takes on and its own problems that it
throws at you, and you suddenly find yourself going, why
did I even like this idea? I feel so trapped now,
and you know, and sometimes you're beating your head against
the wall. But but you know, that's that's the great thing.
(32:13):
It is a creative process. They yeah, they do, they do.
Each one is different, but Brent and I are doing
one right now as a matter of fact, that is
that is very different from anything we've ever done. 'ron
challenged us. He said, you know what, I would really
like to do another little budget movie. Bno is big
in television right now. He's directed every TV show you've
ever heard of, and he goes from show to show
(32:33):
to show, and he said, you know, it'd be fun
to do another low budget movie like we did Tremlor's
Why don't you guys write a sci fi movie with
no special effects? And we went really wrong and we
thought about it. We sat down, so we actually have
come up with an idea. We're about, I don't know
halfway through the process now, our anguishing process. It was
really hard. I mean, we just you know, because we
just we just had to throw out idea after idea
(32:55):
after an idea until we came up with this idea.
And I don't want to talk about but anyway, yes, good,
good note. Yes, good writers are always questioning what they're doing,
and always a lot of times I think, boundering quietly
in their dark corners.
Speaker 3 (33:13):
I and you know, I'm not even a professional writer yet, Steven,
but I you know, I often feel that way. Feel
I always feel like, what the hell did I start? Yeah,
But but you know it's funny. I actually pitched an
idea one time and the producer hated it, right, And
he came back to me later on and he goes,
you know what. You go back. This is late months later,
(33:34):
and he was already working on something else, but he goes,
you know what, I was driving down the Doubt down
this uh, this interstate, and he goes, you know, and
all of a sudden, they couldn't stop thinking about your
script idea. And I started laughing at myself, and he goes,
you know, it's a lot better than I thought it was.
And I said, see, it's always a rose colored.
Speaker 4 (33:51):
Glass, rare prod.
Speaker 3 (33:53):
Yeah, But but you know, Steve, you know We've been
talking for about thirty minutes now, and I just want
to ask you in closing, is there anything that you
know we we didn't get a chance to discuss that
you wanted to or is there any sort of thing
you want to say? Sort of put a period the
end of this whole conversation.
Speaker 4 (34:10):
Oh, I'm writing novels now. I'd like to mention that
to plug them among the other things I'm trying to do.
But but as far as almost it seems like good.
Was there anything else advice wise? I would say nothing
(34:32):
springs to mind. I'm much better the.
Speaker 3 (34:33):
Questions, Uh, where you will find you out online?
Speaker 4 (34:38):
Oh? Well, the Stampede Entertainment maintains a website, knowing we
always have hopes that we will sell something of our
own and rambubbed into production stampedethan Entertainment dot com. And
then I'm on Facebook of course as S. S. Wilson
and and the books are available at Amazon, Tucker's Monster
(35:02):
and phrase Free.
Speaker 3 (35:03):
Cats, and I will link to all that in the shows.
Speaker 4 (35:07):
Everyone. You have an impressive list of podcasts. By the way,
there's like one hundred and fifty of them or something.
Speaker 3 (35:18):
Yeah, like one twenty seven or eight nons.
Speaker 4 (35:20):
Oh okay, I overstated it a little bit, but I
was quite impressed. And when I went to your site
and I listened to a few things, of course before
I agreed to do this, and so I was impressed
with your with your polished approach.
Speaker 3 (35:32):
Oh thank you. I've actually been proud of that because
I had somebody I won't say who, but they came
on and they said, Dave, thank you for not being
that guy. And I said, what do you mean? They said,
you know, they said, like, there's so many people have
podcasts now, and they said, you know, they're sort of
like in their mom's basement and they get people on
the podcast and they could just like sort of like
be malicious, you know what I mean. And it's just like, oh,
(35:54):
so you made a movie. Huh what do you think?
And I'm like, no, I would never be that guy.
I hate people like I actually, Steve, you know, real quick,
I was on a podcast with a friend of mine
and he asked me to be on his podcast. So
I went to his house, which, by the way, we
went to his mom's basement to go with this, and
then he started going like, oh, so you made a
(36:15):
TV pilot and pitched it to MBC. Huh and I said, yeah, well,
is that is that bad? And he's like, well, I
didn't you know, and he said this is the podcast,
by the way, and he's like, oh, he could have
reminded me of too much of Clerks. I said, oh,
I said yeah. I was like and and and and. Honestly, Steve,
I'm I'm pretty good at thinking on my feet. So
what I did was I started, you know, I was like,
if I started insulting you right now, dude, I said,
(36:36):
believe me, I said, you would cut this all out.
And then finally he started to like ease up a
little bit after we exchange a little words. But uh
but yeah, I never would would It would bring somebody
on just to insult them. And I thank god that
I've never had one bad podcast. I've never had anybody
had bad feelings. Everything's always been great. Uh So I'm
proud of that.
Speaker 4 (36:54):
Well you should be. That's that's good. That's good to hear.
And I'm for a warrened. I haven't had that experience yet.
Speaker 3 (37:02):
So I can put you. Yeah, I give you that warning.
I'll be like the harbinger of hair of horror. You
know what I mean like always warning you about things
that are coming. Uh, kind of like old Fred and tremors.
Speaker 4 (37:10):
But he was.
Speaker 3 (37:10):
He didn't tell them, he just he but his dead
body showed them with him something right, Uh, Steve. I
want to say thank you very much for coming on
the podcast, sir, and please stay in touch with me
anything let me my pleasure.
Speaker 4 (37:22):
Thank you. They take care about you. Bye bye.
Speaker 2 (37:26):
I want to thank Dave so much for doing such
a great job on this episode. If you want to
get links to anything we spoke about in this episode,
head over to the show notes at Indie film Muscle
dot com. Forward Slash eight twelve. If you have it already,
please head over to Filmmaking podcast dot com. Subscribe and
leave a good review for the show. It really helps
us out a lot, guys. Thank you again so much
(37:47):
for listening. Guys, as always, keep that hustle going, keep
that dream alive, Stay safe out there, and I'll talk
to you soon.
Speaker 1 (37:54):
Thanks for listening to the Indie Film Hustle podcast at
Indie film Hustle dot com. That's eye and d I
E F I L M h U S T L
E dot com.
You are listening to the ifh podcast Network. For more
amazing filmmaking and screenwriting podcasts, just go to ifhpodcastnetwork dot com.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Welcome to the Indie Film Muscle Podcast, Episode number eight twelve,
Cinema Should Make You Forget. You're sitting in a theater,
Roman Polanski.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Broadcasting from the back alley in Hollywood. It's the Indie
Film Hustle Podcast, where we show you how to survive
and thrive as an indie filmmaker in the jungles of
the film biz.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
And here's your host, Alex Ferrari.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Welcome, Welcome to another episode of the Indie Film Huscle Podcast.
I am your humble host Alex Ferrari. Today's show is
sponsored by Rise of the Film Entrepreneur How to turn
your independent film into a profitable business. It's harder today
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That's film bizbook dot com. Enjoy today's episode with guest host.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
Dave Bullis my guest on today's episode. Has one of
the most successful horror franchises of all time. Whether you've
seen the first Tremors or whether you've seen any of
the other Tremors, or even the TV series or even
the new TV series that's coming out. He doesn't have
anything to do with the new TV series coming out,
but still it's based off of his of his concepts.
(02:14):
You know, there's a lot to peakle lean from this
episode because when they make Tremors one, you know they
had to watch their budget because so what do they do, Well,
they put their monster offscreen and underground. Then at the
right moment of the reveal, you know, it's revealed in
stages and stuff like that. It kind of reminds me
of Reservoir Docs. I was watching that again. Reservoir Docs.
You never see the bank robbery, and I think the
(02:35):
main reason for that is it's not only a really
nice creative choice, but also because it saves money. You know,
when when you're making these first movies, you know, the
creative choices have to rule the day. So again, this
is what this was all about, you know, is making
a monster movie where they can control the rights and
you know, keep everything on the budget. So how do
(02:56):
you do that? Well, we're gonna find out today with
guests SS Wilson. Hey, Steve, thanks off for coming on
the show.
Speaker 4 (03:04):
Sir, You're welcome. You're welcome.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
So, you know, Steve, just to get started, I wanted
to ask what got you into the film industry. Was
you know, did you like films as you know, growing
up or is it just sort of one of those
things where one day you found yourself, you know, sort
of writing screenplays or on set somewhere well as a
tense to happen.
Speaker 4 (03:23):
Right. My story is a little different. I did love films.
I was a huge film buff as a kid, and
my dad supported that. And early on, when I was
I don't know, ten or eleven, he bought a eight
millimeter camera and I was one of those kids who
made movies in the backyard and tried to do special
effects with gunpowder and gasoline, which he also supported. Interestingly,
(03:45):
you know. And then my dad, then when I went
off to college, actually changed my life. I went off
to college and I don't know what I should do.
I guess I'll be a psychologist like my dad. That's
what he was. And he came up after I'd been
there a week or so he said, you know, what
are your courses? And I said, oh, is what I
(04:05):
signed up for. And he said, well, this makes no sense.
Even making movies in the backyard for ten years, that's
going up. And he went to my advisors and he said,
do you have anything like film or movies of television?
And he changed my whole course schedule. This is absolutely true.
And I had never thought about actually trying to do
it for a living, even though I'd been making movies
for years and years and doing stop motion animation. And
(04:26):
then I you know, I never looked back. I went, oh, well, yeah,
because then, you know, then there were people in the
in the departments. We didn't have much of a film
program at Penn State all those years ago, like tell
one television course and like two film courses, and you
had to borrow cameras from the local PBS station whatnot.
But uh, yeah, but that's what happened. And then I
(04:48):
h then I got drafted that I went to USC
Film Graduate School, and uh and there met a lot
of the people that I still work with. H And
even though it took almost ten years from graduating USC
to actually break in and make short circuit, we were
working in the film business making short films and little
(05:11):
short animated things and films for schools and libraries, TV
commercials and whatnot.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
You know, it's funny, Steve, that your your dad was
able to change your whole curriculum because you know, I
actually used to work at a college and grades and
all that stuff were so secretive. They actually fired a
professor one time because he told a student's father what
he got in the class as a final grade before
the kid with the kid did, and they actually just
fired the professor on the spot because of it. Wow, yeah,
(05:42):
it's just but no, that just it's funny though. You know,
it's funny how college has changed so much. But you know,
you went to Penn State, and you know I've actually,
you know, been up there. I actually attended a Penn
State football game. I didn't go there for college, but
you know I've been there once.
Speaker 4 (05:57):
Hitney Alliance.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
Small world, right, because you're out in LA now right,
I'm actually I live in Arizona. Oh okay, you know
I actually have a few friends out there. To go
to LA went as needed, I said, So, you know,
just to ask this, Penn stated ever asked you to
come back to talk about screenwriting or directing or anything.
Speaker 4 (06:19):
I've been bad. It's funny, ironic timing. You know, they
occasionally send me alumni stuff. I've never let them even
know what I do. I should do that, but no
they haven't. They haven't tracked me. Now, they have no idea.
You know who I am ring. I was kind of
an invisible student, geeky guy, and I just went through
and left.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
Well, I thought me they'd have some kind of alumni,
you know, sort of headhunter trying to kept tracking all
this stuff.
Speaker 4 (06:49):
You know, but I have I've never responded to any
of it, so I really actually have it on my
desk as we speak. I said, oh, I should let
them know. They probably would like to know.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
Well, then you know, you could just an this podcast instead, say,
got to go back. Just listen to this podcast on
talking to Dave. So you know you brought up Short Circuit,
by the way, I watched that movie religiously as a kid,
by the way, So I want to ask you know
about your whole writing style. I'm actually always fascinated by
people's writing styles and their approach to their own art.
(07:20):
So I wanted to ask you, Steve, how do you
approach writing? You know? Do you know, do you subscribe
to any sort of methods? Do you do very long
treatments first, or do you just sort of jump right
into writing.
Speaker 4 (07:31):
Brent and I, who have written practically everything together at
least certainly everything has been made, and we've been working
since the days at USC, both in the short films,
and then we wrote Short Circuit, which was our break
We have a very Our approach is outline, outline, outline.
(07:52):
We don't normally write a treatment for tremors. We did
only because we were trying to sell it and we
couldn't sell it as a pitch for because well we
couldn't and that didn't have the treatment didn't sell either,
by the way. But let me go back. So we
outline in great detail. We are not comfortable until we
know where the story is going, and we're very story oriented.
(08:16):
Some people can start, you know, sort of with a character.
Don't just say, oh, there's this character and he's a
drug addict and he's got these problems and I'm just
gonna think about what he does because he's a drug addict.
We can't do that. We've got to know where we're going.
So and we can't really get excited about something until
we know where we're going. Even if it's a rewrite,
which you know, you get offered quite a bit in Hollywood.
(08:37):
It's pretty much all Hollywood doesn't anymore, even if it's
a rewrite, we will sit down before we even say
yes to a job. We'll say, okay, we got to
go through this movie, figure out what we would change
or maybe they're telling us what they want change. We
got to be sure that we can make that work,
and we got to know where it's going because your
ending is is so important in a movie in our opinion.
(08:59):
In fact, somebody well known, maybe one of the Zucker brothers,
said you're ending as fifty percent of the movie. Somebody
said that, and we kind of believe that. So we
got to know where we're going, what the surprises are,
where the twists and turns are so long answer to
that question is we outline like crazy. In fact, we
used to drive studios crazy. And back in the day,
(09:20):
early on when we were getting started, you used to
get twelve weeks was a normal time to write a script,
and we would outline for eight and they'd be calling
us him so you're writing, are you writing well now?
Or so outlining They're like, are you out of your mind?
But then we would write it and you know, four
weeks because it was done.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
So you know, you mentioned tremors when you finally started outlining.
You know, did was there ever a sort of an
impetsus for that movie where you said, you know what,
this is where we want to take it? So you know,
you know what I mean? So we already know, you
know what the monster's going to be, and we sort
of know where the location is going to be. It's
going to be a perfection. Was that a part of
it or did that sort of come in during the
(10:03):
outlining phase.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
and now back to the show.
Speaker 4 (10:15):
Well, there again, we outlined it in great detail, worked
on it with Ron Underwood. Because the goal with Tremors
was to become producers. We were frustrated that everything we
had written up till then we discovered naive that we
writers that we were, that writers aren't really welcome on
this slid. Once you're done with this script, they don't
(10:35):
want to hear from you again. And we would go
to movies and that we had written and go, boy,
that's that's not what I would have done. And our
agent told us, well, look, you guys want to produce,
then you want control, and to get that, you're going
to have to control the material from the get go.
You can't be rewriting the studio's material. Blah blah blah.
So she said, what do you have in your portfolio
(10:57):
and your piles of notes? And we came up with
we came out of our piles of notes with we
got this underground monster idea and she said, that's kind
of cool. I've never heard of that before. And uh so,
first we sat down with Ronto, We outlined the whole story,
figured out who the characters were, where it was going
to go, and then we pitched it all over town.
(11:18):
Couldn't sell it, and then she said, well, let's uh
maybe should write a treatment, very detailed, like twenty five
page treatment. Did not sell send it to everybody, so
she well, I guess you're going to have to write
it on spec. So in between you know, the regular
Hollywood movies we were writing, we were writing Tremors on
spec and uh then took that all over town and
(11:41):
there was it was a huge Our agent was a
huge part of getting this done. She was central. We
call her the Mother of Tremors. This is Nancy Roberts
later our partner in Stampede Entertainment. Uh uh. She handpicked
you know who this script was going to. She did
what an agent really is to do. She handpicked who
the scripts and she knew the studio people. She told
(12:03):
us in advance what they were going to say. You know,
there were there were situations where because of her relationships,
there were certain times if she had a spec script,
she couldn't not show it to certain people because then
they would be mad that they were shut out of
the process. So she said, okay, this is going to
be weird. I have to send this to Disney. They
are going to stay we we hate this because it's
(12:26):
got so much dust in it. They had dusts and
we're like what, Sure enough, that's exactly what came back.
And all of this was, of course off the record,
you know, under the wire. But she got off the phone.
I think I was there at some point. No, No,
she was on the phone to somebody Disney, and they
were passing a very polite way, Well it's not right
(12:46):
for us at this time, and she said, come on,
Heiser doesn't like dust on the other end. But that's
all here, really true. And then she handpicked Jim Jacks, wonderful,
wonderful executive, cloud sick, old school executive who who at Universal,
who loved movies, loved all kinds of movies, knew exactly
(13:10):
what Tremors was. He saw exactly it's B movie, monster
movie roots and she knew that Jim would get it
and he would fight for it at Universal, which is
exactly what happened. And then she enlisted Gail and herd.
She was going to wrought Galeen hurd In because Gail
Anne looked at our buddy Ron's short movies, which is
all he had at the time. He had not done
(13:31):
a feature when we did Tremors, and the studio was like, wow,
we're gonna hand off this movie to a guy who's
only directed films for schools and libraries. And Gail looked
at the movies. Fun, the guy's a filmmaker. Don't worry
about it. And then she shepherded us, especially at the beginning,
you know, made sure we weren't going off the rails
some way to get her in trouble. As she was
(13:51):
executive producer. She saw the dailies and said, good, is
it gonna work?
Speaker 3 (13:57):
Yeah, you know, I really like Tremors. I'm gonna say why, Steve,
because you know, first, it's it just seems everything happens naturally,
you know what I mean. It's you know, and again
when you said you were you started with characters that
you know when you were working with the idea, it's
because you know, all those characters seem like they're real
people who live in that world and they all see
(14:17):
you know, and when they you know, when some of
them finally die, for anyone listening, I'm not who hasn't
seen it yet, I'm not gonna spoil it, but for anyone,
when they finally die, you know, you actually say, oh
my gosh, you know, there isn't a ton of guys
you know that are just getting mall. These are all
the characters right here. So when they finally die, when
not when some of them die, they go, oh my gosh,
you know, that actually is impactful in the story. It's
(14:39):
those escalating circumstances, you know what I mean. And even
with oh, well, you know, you're very welcome and uh,
you know, and because when when when you see the
worm for the first time, you think that's the monster
and then it becomes bigger, and you're always escalating that
further and further and further, and it's always, you know,
they they find a solution, the problem escalates, they find
(14:59):
a solution, problem escalates. I mean that that's just it's phenomenal.
And I don't know if you know who Red Letter
Media is, but they actually are a popular online review group,
and they actually gave it a you know, they actually
have this one segment where they talk about movies they like,
and they actually review Tremors and they said it's one
of their favorite movies.
Speaker 4 (15:17):
So it's always not to hear all of the things you're saying.
We worked very hard on. They were all very important
to us. We my partner is not a B movie
monster fan. I saw them all up until the mid
seventies or so. I saw everything, and I knew all
the cliches we were playing with. My partner is just
(15:38):
all about character. And again and both of us it
was very important that yes, the characters matter, that they
seemed that the plot, things that happened seemed to come
naturally out of the situation. And and even even the
monsters are consistent in what they do. You know, they
don't change the rules, they don't suddenly become indutructor or
(16:00):
anything like that.
Speaker 3 (16:02):
And one other compliment I want to give you too,
is the way that you constructed this with sound, because
you know what I mean, Like in the beginning, when
Earl and I forget Kevin Bacon's character, Uh yeah, foul yeah, uh.
Earl and Valen they're looking for you know, uh, the
the the doctor. They're you know, they're not yelling his name,
(16:23):
they're just sort of walking around and you could really
you know, they're hearing the planks walk, you hear the
bucket kick, and you're you know, and then you know,
valsas we know, where's that music coming from?
Speaker 4 (16:31):
You know what I mean?
Speaker 3 (16:32):
And you know, and and it just it always escuts
with that sound. And then when when you have Chang's
drug Store, you have that that that refrigerator that always
makes that noise, and then that causes you know, further conflict.
I mean, that's really really good writing and using that
audio for filmmaking.
Speaker 4 (16:47):
Oh yes, was well, we knew sound was gonna be critical.
We were a low budget movie and we and that's
why we that's part of the reason we picked Underground
Monster as one of the ideas that we decided to develop.
We thought, oh, well, are underground most of the time,
we'll never see them. Heaven knows. We had endless problems
even even though we in theory weren't seeing them. But
we knew that sound was gonna be critical. We had
(17:10):
great sound people, you know, and it was you know,
years ago people have asked me, you know, what, what
is the base sound of a grab BOYD That sadly
I don't know, and I you know, I've lost track
of the people who invented that sound.
Speaker 3 (17:24):
Yeah, you know I because for everyone that's seen the movie,
you know, that's that sound that they make, you know,
and it's you know, it just all ties them very
well together. And everyone I'm gonna link to Tremors in
the show notes to file off Amazon or Best Buy,
because it's right, it's totally recommended watching. I remember seeing
Tremors years ago, Steve, and it just blew me away.
But see, and I didn't know what I was watching
because you know, now, you know, I've I've studied filmmakers.
(17:47):
I've tell you this. When I go back, now I can,
I can sort of go through with a surgeon scalpel,
and I can pick out all this stuff. Oh, this
is why I found this so fascinating, you know what
I mean? And this is why I found it so entertaining.
So and then I and then I get to talk
to the guy who wrote it and uh, you know,
said made it so uh so now you can tell
me how wrong I am. No, I'm just kidding but no, no,
(18:09):
it's just you know, it's it's just it's a phenomenal film.
And that's why I'm so glad you know that that
the you know, I got to see U the franchise,
you know, they mean like Tremor's two, Tremors three. Uh,
you know, I know you guys you did four as well,
and you also did the TV series, and it was
always great to see you know, this sort of franchise expand.
And you know, you know, I always talk to you know,
(18:29):
my friends and always say, you know, some franchises, you know,
they they sort of go this way, some go that way.
H you know, I mean Friday thirteenth Night right now street.
But Tremor's always sort of kept it in perfection one
way or another because there was always you know what
I mean, there was always a sort of reason why
uh that you know, uh, you know, like like Tremor's
(18:51):
three when it's called back to Perfection, right, and that's
where Melvin's creating that whole town, right, and that leads
into the whole TV series. But it's just stuff like that,
you know what I mean, that's it's all organically well.
Speaker 4 (19:01):
We yeah, it was very important to us to make
the world consistent, and it wasn't easy. You know, we
never expected even to do Tremors Too. That came along
years later only because of the success of the HS.
You know, Tremors one was not a huge hit. I mean,
you know, Kevin Bigan reviewed viewed it as a flop
and he absolutely disowned it for many, many years. And uh,
(19:24):
it wasn't a flop per se, but it but it
did not do nearly what the studio hoped it would do,
and they were disappointed. And so we were floored. And
we got this call from video department who said, hey,
what about Tremors too? He said, what about it? They said,
we want it? What So we all had to sit
down because we were busy doing all kinds of other
stuff at that point in our careers, and said, God,
(19:46):
can we come up with the tremors too? And then
you know, then we said, well, all right, the big
cliche is there's a queen grab boyd And we all went, Okay,
no way we're doing a queen grab We're not going
to do it. And what do we do instead of that?
Speaker 2 (20:00):
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
And now back to the show.
Speaker 4 (20:09):
Then finally, I I'm gonna say it was me. I
think it was me. I was driving along in the
desert as I often am, and I said, I wonder
if they just turned into something small, how weird would
that be? And then we ran with that idea.
Speaker 3 (20:23):
Yeah, and I remember seeing that too, because that's when
they were actually walking on land. I forget the name
that that in the movie, that that the characters give
them Shookers, but the Shriekers, that's right.
Speaker 4 (20:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
And then because it's the third that they're called ass Blasters.
Speaker 4 (20:37):
Right, Well, that's their third incarnation that gave us that
told us where to go with the third one. We thought, okay,
well they change into a third form. And at the time,
again it was really important just to keep the characters consistent,
the rules consistent, other than but still come up with surprises.
You still can't you can't just do the same thing
over and over. So that's how we came up with
(20:58):
the ass Blasters. Uh and I. In fact, the effects
guys Tom Woodrofin Alla Gillis of Amalgamated Dynamics were the
ones who came up with ass Blasters because they were
just as invested in we were in protecting their monsters
and making them consistent, and they have a wonderful design approach.
It's a very real world based. They were volumes and
(21:18):
volumes of books about animals and creatures and skin textures,
and they literally came in one day. I say, hey,
or you, are you aware of the Bombardier beetle And
we're like, no, we're not. They said, that's a beetle
that mixes chemicals in its butt and makes us sound
like a firecracker. We're like, that's a real thing, absolutely,
and we think that's what ass blasters should do. And
(21:38):
we're like, we are totally on board with that. There
was something else I was gonna say, oh oh yes,
and then we got thrown a curb by Universal because
they said, okay, Tremer's through. It will definitely be the
last one. There will definitely not be anymore. We understand
our market perfectly and uh, and we know exactly how
the DVD world works and this is it. So we said, okay,
(21:59):
we'll wrap it up. That'll be that's cool. We will
say that this is the last form that creatures take.
Boom the end, Goodbye perfection, and almost immediately was well
we we did really much better than we thought. We
must have Tremors for.
Speaker 3 (22:15):
Yeah, because I you know, I actually saw Tremors for
and I actually was kind of shocked because I thought,
you know, because I was like, oh wow, I didn't
know they made another one. And you know what, this
is funny Steve here, you know, as you can kind
of tell him the movie buff, I didn't even know
you did a TV series. I actually didn't know you
did a TV series until last year.
Speaker 4 (22:34):
Well it's easy to do. I mean, there's so much
material now. There's a lot of stuff that I don't know.
I mean, the stuff that's being you know, I'm probably
not even up on half of Netflix's shows and all
this stuff. But anyway, I don't blame you.
Speaker 3 (22:47):
Well you I mean, because you know, I'm such a
movie head and I'm always like, you know, looking for
different stuff. And I said they did a Tremor's TV
series before I said, wow, I didn't notice that. So
I actually I actually bought it offline and I actually
went through and I was like, oh, okay, so it
sets up it's you know, it's it's three into the
TV series and then four is a prequel.
Speaker 4 (23:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
Uh, you know, I had to ask, you know, when
you make these Tremor movies, Michael Gross seems like the
coolest guy in the world. Is he Is he the
coolest guy in the world, because I mean he just
seems like he would just be an awesome guy to
hang out with.
Speaker 4 (23:20):
Yes, he's just a wonderful, funny, intellectual, not full of
himself actor. He's very He's great on the set, you know,
at understanding you know who has the scene. You know,
he's not trying to steal other people's lines or anything.
He's he's an actor's actor and and he's so he's
(23:41):
become you know, he became Burt. He took over Burt,
you know from us and Uh. And he would always
on Tremor's two and three and four, even though he
wasn't playing Burt, Uh, he would he would always come
to this set with little pencil delicately penciled lines in
the script, and then he went to sit down with
(24:01):
me and we sit down with us. Before we went
he said, Okay, I got this idea for a change
here and change here, and then we could go back
and forth. And said, well, if you say that, then
we won't know this. So oh yeah, yeah, you're right,
never mind. But a lot of times, you know, especially
with a bird character, he's he defends the character and
and he loves it. I thought at some point I
thought he was going to get tired of it. But
(24:23):
I always have to tell this quick story. You know,
he was a huge television star when he did Treumors one.
He had just finished years and years on Family Ties
playing a guy who could not be more different from Bert,
and they asked us to read him because he was
a big television star and they thought like that would
help the movie. And we went read the Father on
(24:46):
Family Ties and we go, well, okay, we'll do it
because they want us to do it. Well, he blew
us the way you know, he came in because he's
an actor, and he completely just Ron tells us Worth
that he was actually jumping up on his desk at
one point, being showing how far fraid he was of
the monster underground. Anyway, Then some years later, Michael told
(25:08):
me the story of walking down street in New York
and getting that look that fans get when they start
to recognize you, and the guy was walking toward him
and he sees the look he knows the fans going
to say it, and then the fan says, you're that
crazy gun guy and Michael said, yes, I finally escaped
Family Ties.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
I thought you were going to say, oh yeah, I
was the Downe Family Ties, a crazy gun guy. Yeah.
You know. It's funny because I introduced a friend of
mine to Tremors and he actually goes, wait a minute,
that's the dad from Family Ties. And I said, yes,
he's with the Heaton family and I'm sar Keaton and
Heaton and I said yeah, you know, and he goes, wow.
He goes, this is a different role for him, and
(25:52):
I said yeah, and I said, he fits it like
a glove. Because one of my favorite shots of the
whole movie is where Reba McIntyre and my goal Gross
in their underground bunker and the wall starts to shake
and they see the grab Boy come through and they
they start to fire at his rifles, those Bold action rifles,
and they're out of AMMO very quickly, and the camera
(26:15):
just pans over to the wall of guns and they
literally just are pulling guns off the wall. And I mean,
it's it's so if again organic characters, and that fits
so well because I would actually be disappointed Steve if
they did not have a wall of guns.
Speaker 4 (26:29):
Yes, he knew that was a key moment in the movie,
and it was great at the premieres, and that the
test screenings, you know, the audience would they would laugh
through the next all the way through the next scene.
Speaker 3 (26:43):
Yeah, and you know it was you know, a phenomenal.
Tremors is definitely one of my favorite movies. And I think,
you know, when I when I go back to you know,
writing and writing my own stuff, you know, I always
like to dissect movies and I've I've watched, you know,
and I I like to dissect movies that I've really liked.
And uh, you know, and now because this podcast to
talk to people who've who've written great stuff that I like.
(27:03):
So you know, it's just it's you know, it's just
great being able to talk to you, Steve, and you know,
finding out these little intriticities. I think I just butchered
that word, by the way, but uh, but you know,
and I want to ask, you know, Steve, you know,
you have such a great career. You know, you did
short circuit batteries not included short circuit two tremors, as
we all just talked about. I did ghost dat? You know,
(27:24):
is there any sort of writing advice you could give
to anyone listening who's writing the screenplay right now.
Speaker 4 (27:30):
Well, if you like our style, and that's step number one,
if you like the movies we've done, then do what
you're doing. First of all, analyze the stuff you like.
That's a lot of you know, pros. It will call
ourselves that would say that, because you won't be copying
the stuff that you like, you'll be learning from it.
You know, you you obviously understand setups and payoffs. For example,
(27:51):
it's a big thing for me and Britt bedding something
up early in the movie having it payoff later in
a surprising way. Those hard to do. It's hard to
do those correctly and without cheating, and a lot of
times to see movies cheat. Uh.
Speaker 3 (28:07):
I feel a little at odds.
Speaker 4 (28:09):
With kind of the current movie making steam giving anybody advice,
because film after film that has no plot and makes
no sense is wildly successful. And I've begun to wonder,
you know, I rail at this and I go, oh
my day, and blah blah blah, And yet you know
(28:30):
this is for years now, I've been seeing this. I've
started to think, well, the audience has really changed. I
think the younger audience maybe does not care as much
about what I think is important in storytelling, and they
truly do enjoy these movies. You know, part of me says, well,
they don't really enjoy them. It's just that's only that's
(28:50):
the only thing they you know, that's the only thing
on this weekend, so they go. I'm less than less
sure of that. But anyway, I would say, analyze the
stuff you like, whatever it is. You know, if it's
ordinary people, analyze that uh uh uh uh and uh
and write a lot. By the way, you'll hear this
too from other people. Don't get hung up on your
(29:12):
one script. But I did this. You know, early on
we would write a script and go over and over
and over and over, and then we've looked at one
of those earlier scripts. This is like four or five
scripts before a short circuit. You know, go, well, it
wasn't very good, and none of the versions that we
did it just wasn't very good. You got to you
got to move on, write something, get it done, say
(29:33):
goodbye to it, write something else. If you're if you're
a writer, you have plenty of ideas and the worst
worst cases, you find out, well, maybe I don't like it.
You know, you do four or five scripts and you go,
I don't like this, that's fine too, But write a lot.
Don't get hung up on one thing and you know,
(29:53):
and beat it to death, you know, push yourself to
to a degree, look out side your comfort zone.
Speaker 2 (30:03):
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
and now back to the show.
Speaker 4 (30:12):
Although I do think that, you know, if you like
emotional Uh, what's the Julianne Moore pictures she just did
where she was a lady with Alzheimer's. I can't think
of I can't remember the name of it. That's a
very emotional picture that I would never try to write, right,
but maybe you know, other people would, they would take
That's exactly the kind of movie I want to do.
(30:33):
Study those and write a lot. I already said what
I'm gonna say.
Speaker 3 (30:41):
You know, you know, that's great advice, you know, Steve,
you know, just going through and analyzing the movies that
you like and why you like those and like For instance,
I had Victor Miller on here, and Victor Miller wrote
Friday the Thirteenth Part one, by the way, which also
start Kevin Bacon by the way, Wow, yes, yes, small
world right, So you know, and we were talking about,
(31:02):
you know, how do you you know, how do you
break it down? And Victor said, listen, he goes, I've
been doing this for thirty years now, whatever, he said,
I'm still always looking for different ways of writing and
telling a story. He goes, so and he said to
me that, you know, he's always looking for a different method,
something to sort of crack the story or another way
(31:22):
to write. And you know, it's just it's just very
reassuring and unassuring at the same time to hear veterans
like you and him, you know, just talk about screenwriting
and always say, you know, they even with hits because
tremor you mean, because again you have you've had tremors,
You've had you know, short circuit, and you know, even
and he's you know, had Friday Thirteenth Part one, he's
(31:42):
had a few Emmy Award winning pieces, and it's still
it's again, it's reassuring, and it's it's a little worrisome
to hear that, you know, there's always they still don't
have it all figured out.
Speaker 4 (31:52):
Oh you know what I mean. Oh, even if these
hits every script. Yes, every script has its own life
that it takes on and its own problems that it
throws at you, and you suddenly find yourself going, why
did I even like this idea? I feel so trapped now,
and you know, and sometimes you're beating your head against
the wall. But but you know, that's that's the great thing.
(32:13):
It is a creative process. They yeah, they do, they do.
Each one is different, but Brent and I are doing
one right now as a matter of fact, that is
that is very different from anything we've ever done. 'ron
challenged us. He said, you know what, I would really
like to do another little budget movie. Bno is big
in television right now. He's directed every TV show you've
ever heard of, and he goes from show to show
(32:33):
to show, and he said, you know, it'd be fun
to do another low budget movie like we did Tremlor's
Why don't you guys write a sci fi movie with
no special effects? And we went really wrong and we
thought about it. We sat down, so we actually have
come up with an idea. We're about, I don't know
halfway through the process now, our anguishing process. It was
really hard. I mean, we just you know, because we
just we just had to throw out idea after idea
(32:55):
after an idea until we came up with this idea.
And I don't want to talk about but anyway, yes, good,
good note. Yes, good writers are always questioning what they're doing,
and always a lot of times I think, boundering quietly
in their dark corners.
Speaker 3 (33:13):
I and you know, I'm not even a professional writer yet, Steven,
but I you know, I often feel that way. Feel
I always feel like, what the hell did I start? Yeah,
But but you know it's funny. I actually pitched an
idea one time and the producer hated it, right, And
he came back to me later on and he goes,
you know what. You go back. This is late months later,
(33:34):
and he was already working on something else, but he goes,
you know what, I was driving down the Doubt down
this uh, this interstate, and he goes, you know, and
all of a sudden, they couldn't stop thinking about your
script idea. And I started laughing at myself, and he goes,
you know, it's a lot better than I thought it was.
And I said, see, it's always a rose colored.
Speaker 4 (33:51):
Glass, rare prod.
Speaker 3 (33:53):
Yeah, But but you know, Steve, you know We've been
talking for about thirty minutes now, and I just want
to ask you in closing, is there anything that you
know we we didn't get a chance to discuss that
you wanted to or is there any sort of thing
you want to say? Sort of put a period the
end of this whole conversation.
Speaker 4 (34:10):
Oh, I'm writing novels now. I'd like to mention that
to plug them among the other things I'm trying to do.
But but as far as almost it seems like good.
Was there anything else advice wise? I would say nothing
(34:32):
springs to mind. I'm much better the.
Speaker 3 (34:33):
Questions, Uh, where you will find you out online?
Speaker 4 (34:38):
Oh? Well, the Stampede Entertainment maintains a website, knowing we
always have hopes that we will sell something of our
own and rambubbed into production stampedethan Entertainment dot com. And
then I'm on Facebook of course as S. S. Wilson
and and the books are available at Amazon, Tucker's Monster
(35:02):
and phrase Free.
Speaker 3 (35:03):
Cats, and I will link to all that in the shows.
Speaker 4 (35:07):
Everyone. You have an impressive list of podcasts. By the way,
there's like one hundred and fifty of them or something.
Speaker 3 (35:18):
Yeah, like one twenty seven or eight nons.
Speaker 4 (35:20):
Oh okay, I overstated it a little bit, but I
was quite impressed. And when I went to your site
and I listened to a few things, of course before
I agreed to do this, and so I was impressed
with your with your polished approach.
Speaker 3 (35:32):
Oh thank you. I've actually been proud of that because
I had somebody I won't say who, but they came
on and they said, Dave, thank you for not being
that guy. And I said, what do you mean? They said,
you know, they said, like, there's so many people have
podcasts now, and they said, you know, they're sort of
like in their mom's basement and they get people on
the podcast and they could just like sort of like
be malicious, you know what I mean. And it's just like, oh,
(35:54):
so you made a movie. Huh what do you think?
And I'm like, no, I would never be that guy.
I hate people like I actually, Steve, you know, real quick,
I was on a podcast with a friend of mine
and he asked me to be on his podcast. So
I went to his house, which, by the way, we
went to his mom's basement to go with this, and
then he started going like, oh, so you made a
(36:15):
TV pilot and pitched it to MBC. Huh and I said, yeah, well,
is that is that bad? And he's like, well, I
didn't you know, and he said this is the podcast,
by the way, and he's like, oh, he could have
reminded me of too much of Clerks. I said, oh,
I said yeah. I was like and and and and. Honestly, Steve,
I'm I'm pretty good at thinking on my feet. So
what I did was I started, you know, I was like,
if I started insulting you right now, dude, I said,
(36:36):
believe me, I said, you would cut this all out.
And then finally he started to like ease up a
little bit after we exchange a little words. But uh
but yeah, I never would would It would bring somebody
on just to insult them. And I thank god that
I've never had one bad podcast. I've never had anybody
had bad feelings. Everything's always been great. Uh So I'm
proud of that.
Speaker 4 (36:54):
Well you should be. That's that's good. That's good to hear.
And I'm for a warrened. I haven't had that experience yet.
Speaker 3 (37:02):
So I can put you. Yeah, I give you that warning.
I'll be like the harbinger of hair of horror. You
know what I mean like always warning you about things
that are coming. Uh, kind of like old Fred and tremors.
Speaker 4 (37:10):
But he was.
Speaker 3 (37:10):
He didn't tell them, he just he but his dead
body showed them with him something right, Uh, Steve. I
want to say thank you very much for coming on
the podcast, sir, and please stay in touch with me
anything let me my pleasure.
Speaker 4 (37:22):
Thank you. They take care about you. Bye bye.
Speaker 2 (37:26):
I want to thank Dave so much for doing such
a great job on this episode. If you want to
get links to anything we spoke about in this episode,
head over to the show notes at Indie film Muscle
dot com. Forward Slash eight twelve. If you have it already,
please head over to Filmmaking podcast dot com. Subscribe and
leave a good review for the show. It really helps
us out a lot, guys. Thank you again so much
(37:47):
for listening. Guys, as always, keep that hustle going, keep
that dream alive, Stay safe out there, and I'll talk
to you soon.
Speaker 1 (37:54):
Thanks for listening to the Indie Film Hustle podcast at
Indie film Hustle dot com. That's eye and d I
E F I L M h U S T L
E dot com.
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